Whakapau ariki – Baron Charles Philippe Hippolyte de Thierry

Portrait of Baron de Thierry.
Special Collections. GNZMSS 56. Baron de Thierry.

In 1835 James Busby, British Resident at Waitangi, was alarmed by reports he was receiving from Australia and Tahiti of the plans of Frenchman Baron Charles de Thierry. As Anglo-French rivalry still simmered in the aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars, the prospect of de Thierry arriving in the Hokianga to install himself as Sovereign Chief of an independent colony on 40,000 acres pushed Busby into action. To pre-empt de Thierry he began the process of formalizing government in New Zealand with the Declaration of Independence signed by a Confederation of Chiefs in October 1835.

When de Thierry and his colonists eventually arrived at Hokianga in November 1837, Nene and Patuone repudiated his land claim. The immigrants rioted and abandoned the area. Thanks to 800 acres at Rangiāhua granted by Nene and Te Taonui, de Thierry was able to establish a smaller domain, Mt Isabel. Rev. Richard Wade visited in 1838, to find the family living in a poorly thatched clay house, '... comfortless and deplorable in the extreme'. De Thierry's more optimistic description of his Hokianga life appears in his memoir of his daughter Isabel. 'In my walks in our deep forests, and in my garden toils, Isabel was always with me; she dearly loved flowers, and seated at the foot of a tree, we used to converse upon things of this and of other worlds ...'.

Wade's comment summarises the complexity of de Thierry's character. 'The Baron's facile conversation exhibited a strange mixture of intelligence and chimerical absurdity' however idealistic, impractical and unsuccessful the Baron's political aspirations, his personal charm and qualities earned him the respect of the chiefly authorities of Maraeroa, Waiotemārama, Ūtāwhanga (Utakura) and Ōkaihau, that is, of Muriwai, Patuone and Wāka Nene. Other friends were Bishop Pompallier and Sir George Grey. De Thierry left the Hokianga in 1845 on the advice of Māori friends, but his extraordinary career continued in California, Honolulu and Auckland.

Kate de Courcy